Al Bergstein
Forum Replies Created
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Well, you are all right (correct, that is). If you can’t make a living, then you should get “another” line of work. If you are going to stay and compete, then find your niche and work it. This business has always been very hard and super competitive. But like all other businesses it’s about professionalism, too. Showing up on time. Following through on committments, doing great work, going out and selling yourself. Same as it ever was. Think our industry has a low entry cost? Try plumbing!
It’s ok to quit professionally, and sometimes it’s the best thing you can do for an attitude readjustment.
Too many arts schools, even the best ones, don’t teach you how to make a living with your craft. They don’t want to cross that line into ” trade” school. Shame on them,and on you for not demanding it. Just look at Columbia College’s course list. Any classes on the business side of production? I didn’t see any last time I looked. They are one of the top colleges to churn out working pros too!
If you are fed up with working for free, then don’t! Raise your prices, and go out there and sell,or get a new line of work. No harm in that!
Al
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Simon, I agree with Peter’s assessment. If you are on a budget, and can control the interview (it’s not just run and gun), then you might buy a wired lavalier. I believe mine came from Sennheiser. Under $150 I think if I remember right. You can get an extension for it cheap, and it will work in under 6′ distances just fine. Much farther away and you’ll likely need a wireless, which can be much more expensive. I’ve used both the VideoPro mic from Rode and a longer AT 897 from Audio Technica, but that has some length problems when shooting wide angle. But the longer shotguns are considerably better than the Rode shorties. The 5D and 7D Gain control is horrible and you can’t override it. Hopefully the upcoming firmware upgrade from Canon will give us that ability. It will make what is really a useless camera for recording sound into one that will compete with the GH2.
I didn’t ask if you had to record the interviewee questions or could just get by with the answers. If you need to record both, you need to buy a recorder to handle the feed, or at least a field mixer.
Maybe hiring a sound guy with gear would be cheaper. If you are in the Pacific NW I’ll be glad to work inexpensively for the fun of it (G). I’ve ended up with a 7D outfit with a series of various lavs, wired and not, various mics, including some sweet Oktavas and the Rode, running through a SD Field mixer and into a Marantz PM661. I find that for interviews this is about as good as needed for most. I hire a sound engineer if I need more than that.
Al
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Seems to! Yes. It’s got an Nvidea Quadra 1000M in it. Seems to rock. I haven’t actually ‘benchmarked’ it, but I’m thrilled with it’s speed.
Al
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I’m partial, after trying a number of them, to the Thinkpad W520 or W530. Great graphics options, superb (IMHO) keyboard, great screen. I’m satisfied with it.
Al
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I’ve found that MSFTs Anti Virus (security essentials?) is the least invasive and least likely to cause other problems. It’s recommended by Windows Secrets, which is about the most professional site out there for tracking that stuff. I have seen and trouleshot too many issues with norton to recommend it. With the MS package you’ll not feel much difference than using Intago on the Mac to protect it.
If you are converting over, I’ve found that Outlook is great for both managing email, and I use it’s journal features to track my time daily. It’s simple and you don’t need to exit Outlook touse it.Outlook on the mac was a problematic piece of software.
Enjoy your new machine, I likely will buyone when my Dell dies. You’ll find the decrease in rendering times amazing, from my experience.
Al
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I think that in a quick look passing my mouse over the buttons on the bottom that change the text field to the right, that it wasn’t immediately obvious that those fields were changing. Now I see they were. Might be a nit, but you might see about boosting the contrast a wee bit in that text box, if possible. Perhaps a low key halo around the box as it changes? Overall it’s a creative web page, and keeps the client right at the top level, which is great. I would monitor the response rate closely for the next few months, and maybe tie it to an email campaign weekly. I’ve found that email really drives views to the sites I manage for folks. More so than FB.
I do feel that music might not be right, either too loud, or a bit screechy. Since it’s a kitchy kind of 50s look, you might want to listen to a variety of other needle drops. Maybe something will do the same feel, but with a bit less of the irritation.
Al
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Well I come down somewhere in between. Clients like to know what to expect, and if you are a pro, you likely are priced in the ballpark of the competition. The kind of customers who would think it’s all about hourly are likely to be different than agency clients, I would guess. What I would say, after viewing your reel, is that you are priced about right for the Everett market (I’m over on the Olympic Peninsula, and charge a bit less, but there is not the demand as there is in Everett, nor do I have your kind of commercial reel). Your quality puts you up at the proper range for someone viewing your prices, I would say. I doubt your jobs will be based on someone being a ‘bit less’. Either it will be much lower-cost competition, or a different idea pitch. Nice FX, clean modern commercial footage. Likely good for the greater Puget Sound TV market.
I do find the web site ok, but a bit cluttered. If I were a perspective client, checking the field of competition on the web, I might find it confusing. I did find myself clicking on areas I assumed to have response, but not immediately seeing things change. Have to also say that your music track comes across mighty tinny and irratating on my Thinkpad 520 speakers. (I had to turn down the speakers during it). I would likely tone it down, or make it less tinny. I likely would try a different song though.
Good luck! Maybe we’ll meet up at some point, since we are somewhat close.
Al
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Patti, what’s your setup?
Al
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Understood. Then you don’t have the right mics to do the job, I’d say. The Lavs will only get you so far. That’s why Shures are still a standard everywhere on stage for vocalists, for example. I shoot acoustic guitars and mandolin a lot, (I have played both for years) and you need something other than lavs for those. Routinely I record professionals who bring $1000+ mics to record vocals and acoustic instruments. It’s just a totally different game than when you use an amplified instrument. My personal mic for my mandolin is a $350 Sennheiser evolution (which was the mic used by our recording engineer when I recorded a CD in 2006). It has to be close mic’ed to get a decent sound. By that, I mean inches from the sound hole. The lavs range is too limited for this work, IMHO.
I have found that unless you are getting paid big bucks, at which point you should simply hire a sound pro and get them to mic and run the levels correctly, that the board mix, while tuned for the hall and the audience, will get you much closer to an accurate portrait of the sound than what you are talking about doing, in most club situations. It’s not that you can’t make this work, but I think it will be substandard to your ear. I do all EQ after the fact with the board feed, as do the sound guys that I hire on occasion. I blend my camera mics with it to achieve presence. Sometimes the board sound is not correct, but usually it is. I recently had problems with the addition of an accordian to the stage, which was mic’ed too far back to be any good.
You can hear examples of my work at markpearsonmusic.com as all the videos there were recorded by me, with a sound engineer present. Here’s one I recently rolled out.
https://vimeo.com/44265835
Controlled studio like setting in a big hall. We used neumann’s for guitars and shure’s for the vocals. Also on vimeo my channel has a long list of lower budget live recorded acoustic music, some of which are recordings of some of the top mandolin and guitar players from Brazil.
https://vimeo.com/41474125
Believe me, they understood recording their instruments. The live work for them was done with board feeds, and EQ’d after the fact. It’s all about budget. If you have it, then I’d hire a pro, if not, then like me, you go with the best you can get, which is usually a board feed.Al
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Just to be clear, I find that Vegas, if editing a very simple, *short* doc style 2 camera shoot, with virtually no FX or much grading, is faster and easier to get the job done. Very streamlined, and I’m not meaning that it’s because of my newness to Pr (I’ve been using it about 6 months for a couple of full days a week). But the stability has been a never ending battle with Sony. I still go back to it for a quick and dirty job. Sony’s multicam is much easier to use, really a very elegant workflow, but again, I don’t worry about losing an hour’s work due to a crash. All the rest of my longer form documentary work is now being done on Adobe. It’s got a lot more capability, with Warp to stabilize, much better controls for color grading, etc. I won’t be upgrading Vegas anymore.
Al